Survive or Die (2018)

Blood Alley

An American Merchant Marine captain, rescued from a Chinese Communist jail by local villagers, is "shanghaied" into transporting the entire village to Hong Kong on an ancient paddle steamer.

Tears of the Sun

Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

Macross: Do You Remember Love?

It is A.D. 2009 and the human race is caught in a war between giant humanoids, male Zentrans and female Meltrans. Returning from the edge of our solar system after making a space fold, the SDF-1 Macross makes the long journey back to Earth with survivors of South Ataria Island.

Shocking Dark

In a polluted future Venice researchers work to improve the situation. One day, unknown forces start killing them. A team of soldiers and a couple of civilians is sent to investigate. Soon, they encounter strange murderous creatures.

The Violent Breed

A military group led by Henry Silva and Woody Strode are bound by their honor, to execute their orders to kill as many enemies as possible.

Peking Express

A group of refugees fleeing Chinese Communist rule via train are beset by a gang of terrifying outlaws.

I Have to Run

A gay artist flees the repressive laws and war in Russia to go to Berlin, leaving his boyfriend behind. Meanwhile, life in Berlin turns out to be less inclusive he had expected.

And Breathe Normally

At the edge of Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula, two women’s lives will intersect – for a brief moment – while trapped in circumstances unforeseen. Between a struggling Icelandic mother and an asylum seeker from Guinea-Bissau, a delicate bond will form as both strategize to get their lives back on track.

The Truce

After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.

Come Live with Me

Seeking US citizenship, a Viennese refugee arranges a marriage of convenience with a struggling writer.

Beyond Utopia

A courageous pastor uses his underground network to rescue and aid North Korean families as they risk their lives to embrace freedom.

Warehoused

An estimated 12 million people live in refugee camps worldwide and only 0.1% are resettled, repatriated, or integrated into normal society each year. The feature-length documentary.

The Lawyer

Marius is a highly successful lawyer based in Vilnius. He becomes obsessed with Ali, a handsome Syrian refugee he first encounters in an online chatroom run out of Belgrade. Marius is rich and enjoys a vibrant social and cultural life. Nevertheless, he feels that something is missing from it. The journey from Lithuania to Serbia is a relatively short one, but can the two navigate their way through the gulf that separates their very different lives? And how do they deal with the precarious obstacles of the physical borders that stand between them? Written and directed by Romas Zabarauskas, The Lawyer questions assumptions about what it means to be an immigrant and the possibilities offered by life in contemporary Europe.

Saffron Kingdom

After her husband is abducted in Kashmir, a traumatised woman flees to the United States with her young son to rebuild their lives.

Mayor of Lowell

This short documentary chronicles the culture and arts of Cambodian Americans and the Lowell, MA community through the eyes of Sokhary Chau, the first Cambodian American Mayor in the United States. Chau immigrated to the U.S. at seven years old to escape the Khmer Rouge genocide. Through this unique story that showcases the best of Lowell—immigrant success, assimilation, history, and the development of the arts—we see a man born into a war-torn country who comes to America to be a first-in-the-nation leader.

Unwanted

A lonely boy, who lives in Amsterdam with his refugee mother from Kosovo, keeps getting into trouble while yearning for her acceptance. But the traumas caused by the war, which his mother hides away from him, turn his world upside down.

Night Shapes

The Pope is in town and the night of his stay is anything but heavenly for some of Berlin′s inhabitants. Rich and poor, down-and-outs and policemen, street kids and taxi drivers - in their search for a little bit of happiness, they all end up on an amusing and at times harrowing odyssey through the labyrinth of the big city.

The Day After

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iraq border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

The Secret

A stranger enters into and forever alters the life of a couple. He claims to be pursued by certain authorities who intend to prevent him from disclosing a secret that only he holds, whence the title. Is he lying, or insane - or is he telling the truth? Who, if anyone, is after him? And what *is* - the secret?

Birds Are Singing in Kigali

We meet ornithologist Anna in 1994 just as genocide is raging in Rwanda, perpetrated by the majority Hutus against the Tutsis. Anna manages to save the daughter of a colleague whose family has been murdered, and she takes her to Poland. But the woman returns to Rwanda to visit the graves of her loved ones. The director originally worked on the movie with her husband Krzysztof Krauze (My Nikifor – Crystal Globe, KVIFF 2005), but after his death in 2014 she eventually finished this challenging picture alone.

No Time For Goodbye

The lives of two asylum seekers fleeing post-social unrest in their home city intertwine in Britain, starting a romance that tests their resilience and adversity.

Silent Night

Fact-based World War II story set on Christmas Eve, 1944, finds a German Mother and her son seeking refuge in a cabin on the war front. When she is invaded by three American soldiers and then three German soldiers, she successfully convinces the soldiers to put aside their differences for one evening and share a Christmas dinner.

Woman of the Year

Rival reporters Sam Craig and Tess Harding fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.

Locked In

Samira and Nazim, asylum seekers who fled after torture find themselves in the UK again detained by the state. They are on the fast track system, soon to be deported. With the clock ticking, the memories of their torture and what awaits on their return torment them. Will they be able to gain asylum in time? What will the cost be to their relationship?

Something from There

Something from there is a short film on the substance of our original lands. Weaving between the voices of the artist’s parents, one a refugee and the other not, the film is personal, yet evokes a shared Palestinian experience.

Jacir

A glance at the divided U.S. political system through the eyes of a young Syrian refugee on the streets of Memphis, TN, as he faces the harsh realities of chasing the American dream.

Open Cage

Anna, a young photojournalist from Berlin, travels to Serbia to make a photo documentary about refugees. Upon her arrival to Belgrade, Serbia's capital, Anna finds out that she can't go about her task the way she had planned. Through the cabdriver Dzeki, she meets the distrustful but interesting young refugee Maja who works at a nearby fast food restaurant. Miserable with her life in Serbia, Maja dreams of a new beginning somewhere abroad. In an attempt to successfully finish her project, Anna starts photographing Maja, secretly making a documentary about her. Blinded by the wish to change her life, Maja doesn't realize Anna's true intentions.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

Sounds of Sand

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.

A Place Called Chiapas

In 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, made up of impoverished Mayan Indians from the state of Chiapas, took over five towns and 500 ranches in southern Mexico. The government deployed its troops and at least 145 people died in the ensuing battle. Filmmaker Nettie Wild travelled to the country's jungle canyons to film the elusive and fragile life of this uprising.

Highly Explosive

In the center of Hamburg, the discovery of an unexploded bomb from the Second World War not only leads to a far-reaching evacuation, but also to an interpersonal state of emergency.

Caravan

The four Afghan refugees who have applied for asylum in Austria strike up the song, “The caravan moves on” again and again. Encouraged by the journalist Lucy Ashton to record their lives on their smartphone cameras as a video diary, the friends film their precarious daily routine between visits to authorities, small jobs, and changing accommodations. Yet even when hope is lost, one certainty remains: the power of friendship.

Flee

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

The Boat Is Full

During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?

Parvaneh

Parvaneh is a young Afghan immigrant who recently arrived at a transit centre for asylum seekers in the Swiss Alps. The only things she has got to know yet are the rural area surrounding the centre and the centre itself.

Arch of Triumph

In the winter of 1938, Paris is crowded with refugees from the Nazis, who live in the black shadows of night, trying to evade deportation. One such is Dr. Ravic, who practices medicine illegally and stalks his old Nazi enemy Haake with murder in mind. One rainy night, Ravic meets Joan Madou, a kept woman cast adrift by her lover's sudden death. Against Ravic's better judgment, they become involved in a doomed affair.

Kannathil Muthamittal

A little girl is told by her parents that she is adopted. Determined to find her birth mother, her family eventually agrees to take her to Sri Lanka, where they encounter the militant group known as the Tamil Tigers.

Fortuna

Fortuna, a 14-year-old Ethiopian girl, has had no news of her parents since they crossed the Mediterranean Sea. Together with other refugees, she is given shelter for the winter in a Swiss catholic monastery. While she waits for her fate to be decided by the Swiss authorities, Fortuna finds out she is pregnant. The choice she will have to make and the arrival of the refugees will give rise to concern within the religious community and will challenge their concept of Christian charity.

Eldorado

Drawing inspiration from his personal encounter with the Italian refugee child Giovanna during World War II, Markus Imhoof tells how refugees and migrants are treated today: on the Mediterranean Sea, in Lebanon, in Italy, in Germany and in Switzerland.

Journey for Margaret

An American newspaperman and his wife, end up in London after several retreats in the opening days of WWII. After a shrapnel wound and loss of her baby she returns to America. War weary, he is forced to do a story about war orphans, where he meets Margaret.

Crossing The Line

Jakop, a lone fisherman on the coast of lake Peipus has to decide whether refugees brought to his door are his way of redeeming past sins or merely a means to quickly earn much needed cash.

Le Havre

In the French harbor city of Le Havre, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa into the path of Marcel Marx, a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoe-shiner. With innate optimism and the tireless support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials pursuing the boy for deportation.

In Darkness

A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Lvov. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lvov (formerly Poland).

Ulysse clandestin

Plot unavailable

Ayaan

An escaped asylum seeker encounters an Aboriginal man on a remote Australian beach. She must decide whether to trust him or  journey on alone.

Refuge(e)

Refuge(e) traces the incredible journey of two refugees, Alpha and Zeferino. Each fled violent threats to their lives in their home countries and presented themselves at the US border asking for political asylum, only to be incarcerated in a for-profit prison for months on end without having committed any crime. Thousands more like them can't tell their stories.

Chaja & Mimi

Chaja Florentin and Mimi Frons have been best friends for 83 years. Born and raised in Berlin, they had to escape from the Nazis to Palestine with their families in 1934. They talk about their complicated relationship with Berlin in a Tel Aviv café where they meet everyday. A film about friendship, homeland and identity.

The Woman with a Broken Nose

The act of a woman with a broken nose, who suddenly jumps out of a taxi and throws herself off the bridge in Belgrade, connects the lives of three witnesses.